“Very good, Gulik,” Fletcher said. “You’re keeping up your standards.”
And then Fletcher, incredibly, turned and walked away, his brisk footsteps sounding on the deck, his knife clanking faintly on the end of its chain. Martinez, head swimming, followed dumbly with the rest of the captain’s party.
Out of the corner of his eye, as he stepped over the hatch sill, he saw Gulik sag with relief.
Fletcher led up two companionways, then turned to Martinez.
“Thank you, Captain,” he said. The superior smile twitched again at the corners of his mouth. “I appreciate your indulging my fancies.”
“Yes, my lord,” Martinez said, becauseYou’re welcome wasn’t quite the effect he was after.
Martinez went to his office, sat behind his desk and thought about what he’d just seen. Fletcher had called him to witness an inspection at which nothing unusual had occurred.
Fletcher makes scores of inspections every year, Martinez thought. But he’s only killedone petty officer. So how eccentric was that?
An hour or so later Lieutenant Coen, Michi’s red-haired signals officer, arrived with an invitation to join the squadcom for dinner. Martinez accepted, and over a cup of cold green melon soup informed Michi that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred at the morning’s inspection.
Michi didn’t comment, but instead asked about the experiment in two days’ time. Martinez outlined his plans while frustration bubbled at the base of his spine.
What are you going to do?he wanted to ask. But Michi only spoke about the war game, and then of the flight past Termaine the following day.
At the end of the meal he was more baffled than ever.
That night he came awake out of a disordered dream to find himself floating. He glanced at the amber numerals of the chronometer that glowed in a corner of the wall display and saw that it was time for a course reorientation around one of the Termaine system’s gas giants, a final slingshot that would send Chenforce racing past the enemy-held planet.
Martinez watched the seconds tick past, and then the engines fired and his mattress rose to meet him.
Two hours later Alikhan woke him with a breakfast of coffee, salt mayfish, and one of Perry’s fresh brioche. Afterward, Alikhan began assisting him into his vac suit in preparation for the walk to the Flag Officer Station.
Everyone on the ship knew the hour at which general quarters would be called, and most were now struggling into their vac suits, or would be shortly.
The suit checked its own systems and displayed the result on its sleeve display: all was well. Martinez took a last sip of coffee, then took his helmet from Alikhan and dismissed him to go to quarters, where he’d don his own suit with the aid of another weaponer.
Martinez clomped down the corridor, awkward in the suit, and dropped down two decks to the Flag Officer Station. Michi was already present, along with her aides Li and Coen. Michi stood with her back to him, her helmet off, her hair tucked into the cap that held her earphones and the projectors of the virtual array. The unfixed chin strap dangled on her shoulder. Her head was bent and one hand was pressed over an ear as if to hear better.
Even in the bulky suit Martinez could see the tension in her stance. “Stand by,” she said, and swung around to him, her face a mask of furious calculation. He braced.
“My lady.”
“I need you to take command ofIllustrious immediately. Something’s happened to Captain Fletcher.”
“Has he—” Martinez began.Run amuck with a kitchen knife, perhaps? He couldn’t seem to find a way to phrase the question tactfully.
Michi’s words were clipped and curt, nearly savage. “There’s a report he’s dead,” she said. “Now get to Command and take charge before things go completely to hell.”
ELEVEN
Martinez marched into Command with his helmet under his arm and confusion warring with frustration in his heart.
“I am in command!” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Per the squadcom’s orders!”
Heads turned, faces peering at him from over the collars of their vac suits. Chandra Prasad looked at him from the command cage. A lock of her auburn hair curled across her forehead from under her sensor cap.
“Captain Martinez is in command!” she agreed.
Martinez stepped toward her. “Lieutenant,” he said, “do you wish to confirm with the squadcom?”
Amusement touched the corners of her mouth. “I just got off the comm with her, Lord Captain. She told me you were coming.”
Martinez sensed the drama that had marched in with him begin to deflate.
“Very well,” he said.
Chandra tipped her couch forward and rose to her feet. “Course two-two-five by zero-zero-one absolute,” she reported. “Accelerating at one gravity, and are currently moving at.341c. Our closest approach to Termaine will occur in approximately a hundred and ten minutes. We are not yet at general quarters.”
“Sound general quarters then,” Martinez said.
“General quarters!” Chandra called.
The alarm began to chime. The command crew reached into the net bags attached to their couches, pulled out their helmets, and began to lock them onto the connecting rings of their collars.
Chandra paused with her helmet halfway over her head. “My position at quarters is normally at signals,” she said.
“Take your position then, Lady Chandra.”
“Yes, my lord.” As she walked by him she lowered her voice and said, “Your luck’s holding, Captain.”
Martinez shot her a murderous glance, but she’d already passed. He took his seat, the couch swinging with his weight as he webbed himself in. He reached above his head for the command display and locked it down in front of him.
He donned his helmet, and at onceIllustrious turned more distant. All the noise in Command faded—the creak of the acceleration cages, the bleating of displays trying to call for attention, the distant rumble of the ship’s engines. More apparent was the hiss of the air inlet and the polyamide scent of the suit seals. Martinez turned on his suit microphone and tuned to the channel he shared with the signals station. “Comm,” he said. “Test, test.”
“I hear you, Lord Captain.”
He looked over Command. The murals Fletcher had installed were antique military scenes, horsebacked officers who looked like bolsters in odd, overstuffed clothes, all leading bodies of men who carried firearms that featured nasty long knives on the ends. Below the officers’ bland gaze Martinez saw only the backs of the helmets of the crew sitting at their stations. IfIllustrious had been his own command, he would have known their names by now: as it was, he knew only the three lieutenants and a handful of the others.
He wondered how much they knew about why he was here. It was a certainty that whatever they knew or didn’t, they were probably boiling with questions.
Martinez shifted to the channel that allowed him to address everyone in Command, then paused to collect his thoughts. It was difficult to pass on information that he did not himself possess. He decided to keep it as simple as possible.
“This is Captain Martinez,” he said. “I wished to inform you that the lady squadcom instructed me to take command ofIllustrious, as Captain Fletcher has been reported ill. I don’t know any details, but I’m sure that Captain Fletcher will return to command as soon as circumstances permit.”
Well, he thought,that was as bland an announcement as he could possibly imagine. He doubted it went very far toward softening the curiosity of the watch.
Martinez then called Michi to let her know that he’d arrived in Command. The call was taken by Michi’s aide, Lady Ida Li, who presumably passed it on.